Monthly Archives: November 2018

It shouldn’t all be about trade, of course, and personally that isn’t my main reason for being anti-Brexit.  But if it’s trade that brings Theresa May’s Brexit plan down, I shan’t complain. Trump’s statement yesterday, that her proposal will stand … Continue reading →

This is what Theresa May should have written in the papers today: My dear people, I’m appealing to you  directly in order to bypass my cabinet and Parliament, who seem to be merely playing politics with Brexit for party or … Continue reading →

The Guardian is currently running a series of reports and articles on European and American ‘populism’, of which this is one of the latest and, I think, best: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/22/populism-concept-defines-our-age. Cas Mudde (A Dutch political scientist) defines and explains populism not in terms … Continue reading →

By one of our best historians. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/11/how-brexiteers-broke-history?fbclid=IwAR360cE__yun5MEUkuW9EAdmTKVVyQW6k520FomvlVd1ocLNXplnir4S8_U

One of Labour’s new ideas is to institute St George’s Day (April 23) as a National holiday – or ‘bank holiday’, as we curiously call them – to celebrate ‘Englishness’. The Scots, Welsh and Irish all have their National days, … Continue reading →

If Theresa May’s Brexit settlement gets through, says Boris Johnson, it will mean that ‘for the first time in a thousand years this place, this Parliament, will not have a say over the means to govern this country’. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaZnEpgNJpA; 1 … Continue reading →

As expected, and as was absolutely right, the celebrations yesterday to mark the centenary of the Armistice of 1918 were solemn, sorrowful and deeply moving. They were duplicated all over the old Commonwealth (including India), and, I imagine, in all … Continue reading →

Despite a pretty good education in and experience of American history and politics, I’ve been surprised recently at the degree of power a President can wield if he’s not ‘checked and balanced’. Over the past two years the US has … Continue reading →

Reading the Wikipedia entry on Arron Banks – the financier whose bankrolling of the Brexit campaign is now the subject of a criminal enquiry – I was struck by certain similarities between him and Donald Trump. (See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arron_Banks.) I don’t … Continue reading →

The British (and Commonwealth) World War I dead whom we shall be remembering next Sunday – the centenary of the Armistice – fought and died for a number of reasons. Some of course had no choice in the matter, after … Continue reading →